J Anthony Lukas

J. Anthony Lukas, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for writing about America's painful social upheavals, has committed suicide, apparently in part because he was dissatisfied with a recently completed book. He was 64. Lukas was found dead Thursday in his Manhattan apartment. An autopsy Friday showed that he had asphyxiated himself, said Ellen Borakove of the medical examiner's officed. Lukas had recently finished a book about a politically charged murder trial in the West at the turn of the century.

October 12, 1997 | GEOFFREY COWAN, Geoffrey Cowan, former director of the Voice of America and author of "The People v. Clarence Darrow," is dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communications

On a snowy evening in late December 1905, as former Idaho Gov. Frank Steunenberg opened the wooden gate to his comfortable lamp-lit home, an explosion shattered the air, demolishing the gate, splintering yards of boardwalk and tearing the governor's body apart. The blast could be heard for miles around, and the reverberations shook the nation.

In some ways, the memorials said it all. For writer J. Anthony Lukas, who killed himself on June 5, the massive amphitheater at New York's Ethical Culture Society bulged to capacity with the country's journalistic elite. Writers John Gregory Dunne, David Halberstam, Betty Friedan and Jonathan Yardley were there. So were Joseph Lelyveld, executive editor of the New York Times, and Hendrik Hertzberg, editorial director of the New Yorker.

In some ways, the memorials said it all. For writer J. Anthony Lukas, who killed himself on June 5, the massive amphitheater at New York's Ethical Culture Society bulged to capacity with the country's journalistic elite. Writers John Gregory Dunne, David Halberstam, Betty Friedan and Jonathan Yardley were there. So were Joseph Lelyveld, executive editor of the New York Times, and Hendrik Hertzberg, editorial director of the New Yorker.

October 12, 1997 | GEOFFREY COWAN, Geoffrey Cowan, former director of the Voice of America and author of "The People v. Clarence Darrow," is dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communications

On a snowy evening in late December 1905, as former Idaho Gov. Frank Steunenberg opened the wooden gate to his comfortable lamp-lit home, an explosion shattered the air, demolishing the gate, splintering yards of boardwalk and tearing the governor's body apart. The blast could be heard for miles around, and the reverberations shook the nation.

Anne Tyler has won the National Book Critics Circle's fiction award for her novel, "Accidental Tourist," and J. Anthony Lukas has won the award for general nonfiction for his study of court-ordered busing in Boston. Lukas' "Common Ground," which also won an American Book Award, recounts the experiences of three families in the turmoil surrounding a federal judge's order to desegregate Boston schools. Leon Edel won the award for biography and autobiography for his "Henry James: A Life."

Baltimore writer-producers David Simon and Ed Burns will shift their TV storytelling focus this summer from the failed war on drugs in Baltimore to the American invasion of Iraq -- just as they are finishing the final season of HBO's acclaimed drama "The Wire." HBO will begin production in June on "Generation Kill," a seven-hour miniseries based on an award-winning book by Evan Wright about the early days of the war in Iraq. The work originally appeared in a series in Rolling Stone magazine.

The Denver Post was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for meritorious public service today for its "in-depth study of missing children, which revealed that most are involved in custody disputes or are runaways, and which helped mitigate national fears stirred by exaggerated statistics."

Boston burning. What a curiously satisfying/unsatisfying work of split personality is "Common Ground," the two-part drama airing at 9 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday on CBS (Channels 2 and 8). On the one hand, these are four hours of angry, seething television that convey rage so powerfully and convincingly that you feel it to your toes.

J. Anthony Lukas, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for writing about America's painful social upheavals, has committed suicide, apparently in part because he was dissatisfied with a recently completed book. He was 64. Lukas was found dead Thursday in his Manhattan apartment. An autopsy Friday showed that he had asphyxiated himself, said Ellen Borakove of the medical examiner's officed. Lukas had recently finished a book about a politically charged murder trial in the West at the turn of the century.

Studded with vivid character sketches and evocative descriptions of the American landscape, journalist Judy Pasternak's scarifying account of uranium mining's disastrous consequences often reads like a novel — though you will wish that the bad guys got punished as effectively as they do in commercial fiction. Real life is complicated, and Pasternak, a veteran of 24 years with the Los Angeles Times, does justice to the historical and ethical ambiguities of her tale while crafting a narrative of exemplary clarity.